08/08/2019 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – Family life is difficult in Egyptian villages. Small homes crowd around the desert country’s only water source, the Nile, eliminating privacy. Marriage is a transaction. For the women, marriage is a source of protection from a society that limits their opportunities. Children are born, but health services are inadequate in the villages. Many children suffer severe disabilities. In some villages, the problems are deepened by rampant drug use. Families are further destroyed.

Christians are not immune to these challenges; if anything, these problems are more obvious since opportunities for Christians are more limited in this officially Islamic nation. Villages in Upper Egypt provide many examples. Here, drug abuse runs rampant. Christian men find easier opportunities to escape the resulting complications if they convert to Islam. Their families are left in a hopeless situation if they refuse to convert.

International Christian Concern (ICC) recently traveled to one Upper Egyptian village, bringing food packages for women whose husbands converted to Islam and subsequently abandoned their families. It was here that we meet with Martha, a 47-year-old woman with six children, including a paraplegic son. She had been struggling to provide food for her family after her husband’s conversion, and was amazed that we would bring food to a stranger.

“The food package made us satisfied for around one month,” she said. “Many times, we didn’t use to eat meat or chicken. And we were eating the food in well-arranged and regulated method. The food package would make us satisfied for more than one month. Thanks, God!”

It was through the resulting relationship that Martha began to entrust her story with ICC’s team, sharing how difficult life had become due to her husband’s life choices.

He was working for a wedding and rental service, but had a terrible drug addiction. He could not afford both his family expenses and his drug addiction. So he approached the church and asked for assistance, proposing the idea of purchasing a tricycle. This small, three-wheeled motorbike would allow him to custom build his own taxi service. He promised that it would provide enough income for his family.

Instead, the tricycle signaled the family’s downfall.

Because of his drug use, he had already begun forming negative relationships with Muslims. The tricycle allowed him to expand these relationships and further feed his drug habit. They would convince him to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam. It was never clear if the conversion was his full choice or if it was an action taken under duress because of his drug addiction. What happened next, however, was his clear choice.

When Martha found that her husband left Christianity, she was stunned. “When I got the news of his conversion, I felt so embarrassed that I wished a hole would open in the ground and swallow me up.”